I am a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, I also am a Senior Fellow in International Religious Persecution with the Institute on Religion and Public Policy. I am the author and editor of numerous books, including Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire, The Politics of Plunder: Misgovernment in Washington, and Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics. I am a graduate of Florida State University and Stanford Law School.

NATO's Lack Of Any Serious Purpose Means It Should Retire

NATO’s foreign ministers are meeting this week and have a “busy agenda,” proclaims the alliance. Yet NATO no longer has any serious purpose.

European countries want to be military powers, but increasingly are failing to maintain capable forces. America always has been the dominant power in NATO. The U.S. may soon be the only effective power in the alliance. NATO should retire.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created more than six decades ago. Having fought to free Western Europe from Nazi domination, Washington was determined to keep Western Europe free from Soviet domination. Yet a Soviet invasion quickly became unlikely, if for no other reason than the potential of escalation to nuclear war.

After the collapse of the U.S.S.R. the transatlantic alliance became irrelevant. Its purpose, famously explained Lord Hastings Ismay, was “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” All of these objectives had been met.

Today the Soviet Union is gone. Russia may be hostile, but it lacks both the will and ability to threaten Europe. At most Moscow can beat up on weak neighbors like Georgia.

Germany remains down militarily, skeptical of international involvement. Ironically, most of Europe wants Berlin to do more. Economically the federal republic is way up—underwriting the entire European Union.

The U.S. is in. America and Europe share history, tradition, and values. Economic ties may grow through a transatlantic free trade agreement. Military links are secondary.

However, despite the changed international environment institutional survival became NATO’s paramount objective. Proposals were advanced to shift from deterring the Soviets to combating illegal drug use, underwriting student exchanges, and promoting environmental protection.

Eventually the alliance decided to operate “out of area.” As common security threats disappeared, members increasingly used the alliance to drag other members into narrow conflicts favored by only a few members.

Germany helped trigger the Balkan wars with its speedy recognition of the seceding Yugoslavian territories without any protection for Serbian minorities. While the initial attack on Afghanistan to displace al-Qaeda and oust the Taliban properly responded to 9/11, the years of combat that followed (and which continue) did not. Britain and France pressed for war in Libya even though they were incapable of prosecuting it alone. Mali belongs to Paris, though as yet the rest of the alliance has stayed out of combat there.

These unnecessary wars have kept the alliance busy, but they also have accelerated its decline. They demonstrate that NATO is irrelevant to its members’ security. Many Europeans no longer even see any obvious need for national militaries. Observed Christian Moelling with the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik: “At a time of significant financial hardship, some … might even begin to question the merit of having armed forces at all.” Europe faces the prospect of having armed forces consisting of little more than gaudily garbed ceremonial soldiers, strutting in front of palaces and parliaments.

Oddly, at this moment the old imperial temptation appears to be reasserting itself in some European capitals. Philip Stephens wrote in the Financial Times that “Europeans have caught the interventionist bug just as the U.S. has shaken it off. The French and the British led the war to depose Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. They are in the vanguard of calls for intervention in Syria.” Paris also acted in Mali. The Europeans seem increasingly determined to reshape conflicts and rebuild nations throughout the Middle East and Africa without possessing the military force to do so.

With this backdrop a senior NATO official visited Washington last week. He spoke at a private gathering, quipping that he couldn’t be quoted but he could be fired. The discussion suggested an alliance in terminal decline.

He argued that NATO is being transformed by several important events. One is Afghanistan, which has dominated NATO thinking for more than a decade yet has “reduced the aptitude for crisis management,” that is, fighting wars “beyond direct defense.” Another is the diminution of terrorism as a strategic concern. It still exists, witness Boston. But rather than posing “an overarching threat,” it is something that “we will have to live with.”

The financial-economic crisis continues, sapping military budgets on both sides of the Atlantic. As a result “there is no chance for budget increases, not even for keeping spending levels as they are.” The energy revolution is reducing the “political relevance of the Persian Gulf and Russia.” The so-called pivot to Asia will further diminish American force levels in Europe.

All of these have had an effect. But the elephant in the room is the disappearance of any transatlantic security need. Military alliances are intended to deal with common threats. One existed during the Cold War. But no longer.

So what should NATO do as the troops come home from Afghanistan? One of the event’s participants urged Syria as the next mission for the alliance. If not, then what is the use of NATO, he asked? However, the conflict poses no direct threat to any alliance member—a few artillery shells landing on Turkish territory don’t count. Getting involved in a brutal civil war in which one side possesses a sizable army armed with chemical weapons and the other side includes many anti-Western radicals would be madness.

Another discussant suggested getting back to the core duty of collective security, including cyber security and missile defense. However, such activities, though useful, do not require a formal military alliance among the western powers. Cyber cooperation should extend well beyond Europe, while anti-missile activity could mix bilateral and regional links.

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